OVIEDO, Spain

Coronavirus continues to spread rapidly in Spain, with a total of 2,128 confirmed cases on Wednesday afternoon, double the slightly over 1,000 cases on Monday. 

So far, COVID-19 has caused nearly 50 deaths in Spain.

Madrid has become the focal point of contagion and home to over half of the country’s cases.

Today was the first day that all schools in Madrid were closed, and a government health official said it will probably take between nine and 10 days to see the effects of the new measures.

On Tuesday, officials also announced that gatherings of more than 1,000 people would be banned in Madrid and other centers of transmissions. Yet, just two days earlier, 375,000 protestors took to the streets of Madrid for International Women’s Day.

Although all flights between Spain and Italy were canceled as of Wednesday, the regional president of Madrid said she has not even considered blocking all travel to and from the hard-hit region.

Spain’s health minister has told everyone in the country to avoid non-essential travel.

Throughout Spain, panicked consumers have been emptying out supermarket shelves, and some grocery stores in Madrid temporarily suspended online purchases on Wednesday due to high demand.

All sporting events in Spain have been put behind closed doors.

Late Tuesday night, it was also announced that the famous Las Fallas festival in Valencia, which had been expected to bring €750 million to the city this month, would be canceled.

Spain has quickly surpassed France to become the fifth-worst-affected country in the world, after China, Italy, Iran and South Korea.

Fernando Simón, the head of Spain’s emergency services, said on Wednesday that in the best-case scenario, transmissions will continue for the next two months. If Spain doesn’t manage to curb the spread as quickly as planned, he said the situation could last for another four or five months.